Notes From the Patriarchy

My student Jack just finished (and loved, of course) one of my favorite middle-grade books, The View From Saturday, and was on the market for a new read. Jack is fun and hard-working, and generally tries to be a good kid. He loves to read about young people struggling, so I handed him The Great Gilly Hopkins, a classic about a saucy girl trying to get kicked out of her foster home. He took one look at the cover and said,

“I don’t know, I think this book looks too girly for me.”

Now, if the cover was cotton-candy pink and covered in princesses and fairies, I might think it was too ‘girly’ for me too (though I would enthusiastically recommend it to the (male or female) fairy-tale lovers in my class). However, this cover features a scowling child in overalls and plaid. The scowler is a girl. I guess any book about a girl is too girly? THANK YOU PATRIARCHY for teaching our boys that girls’ stories are beneath them. I can only imagine how many great books Jack has missed out on so far.

Clearly, I called shenanigans and ordered him to give it a try, supervising as he reluctantly placed the book in his backpack. Commanding someone to keep an open mind has never failed, right? RIGHT???